That said, it is highly unlikely we have been visited, precisely because the distances are so vast, the universe is so gigantic, and our planet is so tiny. If so, they may have developed space travel technologies that allow them to traverse the great distances with relative ease. Given that the observable universe is 13.7 billion years old and it took 4 billion years for intelligent life to emerge on Earth, then it is possible the remaining 9 billion years produced civilizations that may have existed for millions or billions of years. Given that the scale of the observable universe is immense and that the Kepler telescope suggests there may be billions of planets in the Milky Way, there is almost certainly life elsewhere in the cosmos, perhaps including intelligent civilizations. The ancient-astronaut theory draws upon two valid cosmological concepts: 1) the reality of the immensity of space and time and 2) the possibility of advanced civilizations somewhere in the cosmos. Since the observable universe is 13.7 billion years old, it is quite possible there are extraterrestrial civilizations older and far more advanced than human civilization. In Ancient Aliens, we can see philosophy’s mediated corpse, where an attempted space philosophy and cosmic narrative have crashed and are still aflame in America on the History Channel.
#ANCIENT SPACE GAME REVIEW SERIES#
In the absence of a meaningful space philosophy, the hit television series Ancient Aliens (2010-) has hijacked the cosmic narratives from Apollo and 2001 and claims to explain humanity’s origins and destiny in the universe. Here we are fifty years after Apollo and thirty years after the Hubble telescope, and the dominant ideologies are still based in cosmic narcissism and human super-specialness-pretending to be the center of the universe or under the delusion that a Creator or Ancient Aliens are looking out for us. The recent Star Trek films are not that different from Star Wars. Outside of a few thoughtful space films like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Interstellar (2014), Hollywood populates the expanding universe with endless monsters (ex: the Alien series) and apocalyptic warfare (ex: Star Wars), complimented by very little awe, wonder, and discovery.
This cosmic and philosophical failure is evident in our popular arts.
This death began with the crash of Apollo 8 and Earthrise. In the wake of the stunning achievements of the Apollo program and the Hubble Space Telescope (just two examples), philosophy has failed to generate a popular cosmic narrative that integrates the origins and destinies of the human species into the vast and wondrous cosmos-an expanding universe stretching across 100 billion light years and populated with 2 trillion galaxies and untold numbers of stars, planets, lifeforms, and black holes. But, as a force in popular culture, contemporary philosophy is largely dead, primarily because it has failed to keep up with the discoveries in contemporary cosmology. Of course, philosophy is still alive in academic journals, Amazon books, and the shrinking philosophy section at the Barnes & Noble bookstores. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics.” (p. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? … Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. They wrote: “We exist but for a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. In the book The Grand Design (2012), Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow claimed that “philosophy is dead” (p. Note: This article was cited in the New York Times (July 22, 2018) as an intellectual counter to the emerging religion of “Ancient Aliens.”įor more of my critiques of conspiracy theory in Medium:Ģ021: “ Anti-Vaxxers, Conspiracy Theorists, and Jean Baudrillard’s “Perfect Crime”Ģ020: “ UFO-JFK-X-NEO-Q: The Alpha-Omega of Conspiracy Theory”Ģ020: “ Welcome to the Desert of the Red Pill”Ģ017: “ Apollo Moon Landings: Pseudoscience and Six Reasons Why There Was No NASA Hoax”Ģ017: “ The Kennedy Assassination and Zapruder Film: Conspiracy Theories and Alt-Fact Worldviews” Tsoukalos quote against a Hubble Deep Field image, courtesy of NASA. Hijacking the space narrative from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the long-running series Ancient Aliens (2010-) perfectly illustrates TV’s non-stop assault on logic, rationality, and general sanity.
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